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When you think about buying spreadsheet software, of course, the first thing you think about

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is Lotus 1-2-3.

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The product which established the spreadsheet is a major PC application.

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But nowadays, there's a whole new generation of spreadsheet programs which provide new

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levels of functionality and power.

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Today we take a look at this new generation of spreadsheet software both for the IBM PC

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and the Macintosh on this edition of the Computer Chronicles.

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The Computer Chronicles is made possible by Leading Edge, makers of IBM compatible computer

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systems including word processing with spelling correction, communication software, and Hays

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compatible 1200 and 2400 baud modems.

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Leading Edge with over 1,000 service centers nationwide.

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Leading Edge, leading the way to the information age.

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Additional funding is provided by McGraw-Hill, publishers of Byte.

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Byte's detailed technical articles on new hardware, software, and languages cover developments

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in computer technology worldwide.

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Welcome to the Computer Chronicles.

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I'm Stuart Shafae and this is Gary Kildall.

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Gary, when we looked at spreadsheet software last week, we were talking about the MS-DOS

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world, IBM's, as you tend to when you're talking about business software.

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This is a Macintosh, believe it or not, the new Mac 2.

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And we hear an awful lot about the Mac now in the business marketplace.

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This looks and acts a lot more like a business type computer.

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What do you think?

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Is the Mac going to be a serious player for people who use spreadsheets and that kind

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of thing?

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Well, Stuart, you know, when the Mac was first introduced several years ago, it really wasn't

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targeted at the business market itself.

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In those days, the typical business applications were spreadsheet, word processor, database

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kind of work.

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And it was really a graphics engine with a small, slow disk and so forth.

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But the two worlds of business and Mac have sort of come together.

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In business now, it's very important.

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Desktop publishing is a very important aspect of it.

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Image processing, general rich text, things of this sort.

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Now the Mac has got now a large size screen, big hard disk, and so we can really see those

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two things working together.

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Now also Apple has announced their LAN strategy, hook up to IBM machines.

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So it could be a good choice for business.

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Gary, we're going to take a look at two of the top rated spreadsheet programs for the

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Macintosh, Excel and Trapeze.

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And we'll also see two new generation spreadsheet programs for the IBM, things that do a lot

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more than the traditional spreadsheet.

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Now one of the alternatives spreadsheet users have are the low cost alternatives.

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And one of the big issues in spreadsheets right now is the whole issue of look and feel.

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We're going to start out with a report on that.

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This is a computer spreadsheet screen.

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This is a computer spreadsheet screen.

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And so is this.

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If they look similar, that's part of the reason for a sudden increase in lawsuits between

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software developers.

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Lotus, best known for its 123 program, is suing Paperback Software over the similarity

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of its VP Planner program.

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And Mosaic Software for its twin spreadsheet.

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And the heart of the complaint is that Mosaic and Paperback both infringe the overall quote

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look and feel of the Lotus 123 program.

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Specifically what they've claimed is that the defendants have used identical or very

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similar program names or command names, very similar menu structure and sub menu structure,

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same kind of syntax in the language that they use in the programs, such that the user who

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looks at one program versus the other will say the overall look and feel is essentially

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the same.

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While a program's source code is clearly protected by law, the elusive look and feel of a screen

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display is a relatively new aspect of software protection and open to sharp disagreement.

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The idea is that a lot of the functionality that people need, you cannot patent or copyright.

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And further, a lot of the user interface words and things ought to be available to many people,

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especially that very common words are used in many cases.

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Take a simple book, any book that you have.

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Well, those are all words that are in the English language.

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And in that sense, they're not original.

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What becomes original is the manner in which the developer puts them together, the way

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that he organizes them or orders them or sequences them.

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That's what gets protected by copyright law.

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A recent case involving communication software could have a significant impact on future

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look and feel cases.

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DCA, which owns the Crosstalk program, sued the Softclone company for its mirror communications

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package.

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The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff.

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Given that the court in that case held that essentially one key screen was enough to constitute

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copyrightable material and found that the defendants had infringed that one key screen,

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that means that cloning user interfaces is going to be extremely suspect in the future.

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One of the many difficulties encountered by software developers is the overwhelming dominance

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of a handful of programs, which some companies view as de facto standards.

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And when you go into a stretched market, you realize that there is primarily one customer

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that dominates the market, and that is Lotus.

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They probably have approximately 60 to 80 percent of the marketplace.

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So the already existing de facto standards in the marketplace make it literally impossible

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for anybody to enter that marketplace or do anything constructive.

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All sides agree, for different reasons, that the outcome of these cases will have a major

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impact on the future of original software.

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Assume what's going to happen if in the worst case scenario, Lotus wins.

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Absolutely it's going to be chaos.

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I mean, people are going to start doing things just for the sake of being different.

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They're going to make it different.

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And it's going to be incredibly hard for any user to do anything with any of these programs.

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One of the purposes of the copyright laws is to reward people's invention.

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I don't know what kind of creativity it is that's being stifled in this case.

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Is cloning considered that creative?

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I'm not sure.

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I think that perhaps more creativity comes out of the fact that authors are rewarded

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for what they've done.

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Joining us in the studio now is Mike Slade, the Macintosh products manager with Microsoft,

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the makers of Excel.

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Next to Mike is Andrew Wolfe, president of DataTailor, Inc., makers of Trapeze.

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Gary.

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So the first, I guess, the granddaddy of spreadsheets, VisiCalc, was a character-oriented spreadsheet.

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And there was a major generation change when 1, 2, 3 came out with graphics and so forth.

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Now, is the Mac 2 going to be a generation change also in spreadsheets?

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Well, I think the Macintosh in general helped that occur.

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The whole notion of a graphical user interface with pull-down menus and a mouse and icons

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led us to design a spreadsheet Excel that was much more like working with pieces of

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paper on a desktop and letting you make relations between those pieces of paper.

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And this just extends that in many nice ways, color, graphics, speed.

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Andy, what are your thoughts on it?

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Well, I see the machine as allowing people to do things they have not been able to do

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before, work with larger spreadsheets, be able to calculate more complex models, display

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more charts.

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And that is going to improve a lot of people's productivity.

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Okay.

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Now, Mike, you have a demonstration for how Excel can give us, right?

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That's right.

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Okay.

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As you can see here on the screen, Excel doesn't look much like a traditional spreadsheet.

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You have not one but several different worksheets open, and they look like different pieces

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of paper on your desk, Mike.

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You can zoom the screen up and work with one or several sheets at a time and build formulas

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by pointing and clicking, strolling around the worksheet just by using the mouse.

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It's very simple.

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It's a very large worksheet.

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It's very fast, very easy to work with.

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It's very easy, for example, to build relationships between worksheets just by pointing and clicking.

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I can take these two subsidiary spreadsheets and just paste in the names for them and link

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them to this total spreadsheet.

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And without having to do any complex math or anything, I can just enter the formula,

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and it's automatically built so that later if one of these values changes, say, from

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71,000 to a much larger number like 710,000, you see the number is instantly reflected

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up here in the total spreadsheet.

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In a product like 123, not only couldn't you do that, but you couldn't even think about

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doing it because you could only see one spreadsheet at a time.

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In the same way, it's very easy then to take a group of numbers and very quickly open a

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window that has a graphical representation of those numbers, and that window can then

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be linked to those numbers.

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And I'll show you how that works in just a second here.

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So you can see I have a graph now that represents those numbers.

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And if one of these numbers up here changes to a smaller number, you'll see the graph

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is instantly redrawn to reflect that change.

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So you get visual feedback, and you can have as many charts or spreadsheets open at a time

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as you like.

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It's also very easy to change what the graph looks like.

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There's a built-in pictorial gallery, another innovation that the Macintosh facilitates.

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It lets you pick between different kinds of charts and have the chart be redrawn in whatever

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format it is that you'd like to see it in.

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And so rather than pick from some list of charts, it's very nice to be able to see a

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pictorial representation of that.

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One of the nicest strengths of a product like Excel is that it lets you automate things.

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And what I'm going to do here now is close all those spreadsheets and open what's called

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a macro.

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And Excel actually records what you do.

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It learns what you do, and will then play it back.

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And I'm going to show you an example of something that Excel recorded my actions and turned

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them into a thing called a macro.

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And now it's going to automate the process of entering data, which notice it's actually

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prompting me with this little dialog box, and then asking me to put the data in.

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And then it takes the data, reformats it, and puts up a chart window of the data without

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me having to do anything.

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And that's really what computing is all about.

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OK, yeah, you didn't have to write the macro.

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It wrote the macro following what you were doing the last time around.

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Yeah, before I had just done those same commands, and it wrote the command line.

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You can write it if you like, but it's very simple to have Excel write it for you.

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And you can just go through.

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The new machine is going to give us opportunities to make Excel run in color and lots of things

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to expand the capabilities of it.

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But since we've introduced the product, we've just had a fantastic reception to it.

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Speaking of color, Mike, if I can ask you to unload Excel, and we can get trapeze in

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there.

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I'm going to ask you to do that, Andrew.

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Trapeze does run in color.

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We're going to see that in just a minute.

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One of the features of the Mac 2, of course, is the color.

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What role does color play in spreadsheets?

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Does it matter at all?

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Well, it can help the person who's developing a spreadsheet to show his numbers in a way

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that's easier for other people to comprehend, and himself.

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He can show different numbers in red to show that he's losing money, or highlight labels

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with color so that they're easy to find in a very large worksheet.

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Of course, you can do charts in color, which allows you to show the information much more

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graphically than just black and white can do.

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Maybe the best way to answer it is to run trapeze for us, and we'll see how you do use

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color, Andrew.

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Tell us what you're doing as you do it.

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I'm just selecting three worksheets that I'm going to be showing and opening them all.

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So you notice the windows are in blue.

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The difference between trapeze and a normal spreadsheet is that instead of having rows

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and columns, it's a free-form type of spreadsheet.

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The basic unit is a block, which is a collection of numbers, which can be a row, a column,

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or a table, or even just an individual value.

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It has a name, which you can change.

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You use the names to build formulas.

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So in this case, this total sales block is the sum of sales.

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So it knows that there are four values here, so it's summed them.

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The formula over here is sales divided by total sales.

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So it understands that there are four values, and there's one value, so it needs to produce

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four values.

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And because the relationships are all built by name, I can take the block and move it

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anywhere I want, rearrange it.

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I can change its size and shape.

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I can change its font.

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And of course, the relationships don't change.

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The relationships are totally independent of where the block is located.

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And as you can see, there's also charts on the same page.

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The charts are built the same way, with a chart formula and then the sales block and

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the region block.

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So as I change the number up here, you can see the chart will also change, and all the

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numbers will recalculate.

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Because the Macintosh is so good at doing fonts and styles and pictures, there's no

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reason why you can't include a picture in with your worksheet.

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This may be a trivial example, but it does show the ability to include graphics along

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with your spreadsheet, so that you can have a data entry form or an invoice and have calculations

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on top of it mixed in in different fonts along with your graph.

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Now this is a show you an example of how you can build a formula very easy without having

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to remember how to type things.

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Right here is the sum of investments, which is a block right here.

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Now I'm going to build this simply by pulling the sum function from the scrolling menu,

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and then down here is a list of all the open worksheets.

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So I can go to any worksheet that's in memory by name.

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So in this case, I'm going to get invest, hit the checkbox, and it recalculated it.

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So Trapeze allows you to not only do calculations, but also to lay them out in an attractive

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manner and a lot of people who do calculations need to present them to people.

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So Trapeze allows you to do it without having to go to other programs to put all the pieces

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together.

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Andrew, is Trapeze written especially for the Mac 2 or does it run on...

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It runs on all Macintoshes.

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This version is the version we shipped in January long before the Mac 2 existed and

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it ran in color then.

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We are producing a version specifically for the Mac 2 to take advantage of additional

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colors and some other features it can do.

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Mike, what about Excel?

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Excel was written at least almost two years ago and it runs fine on the Mac 2, but it

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runs on the entire Macintosh family.

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We are also working on a new version that will take more specific advantage of the capabilities.

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Gary, I think it's pretty clear the answer to your question is we've come a long way

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from Lotus 1, 2, 3.

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This is a generation leap.

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Gentlemen, thanks very much.

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We're going to be back in just a minute with two more spreadsheet programs that do a lot

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more than traditional spreadsheet work.

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One of them is called Words and Figures.

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The other is called Predict.

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So stay with us.

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With us now in the studio is Camillo Wilson.

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Camillo is president of Lifetree Software, makers of Words and Figures.

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Next to Camillo is Richard Roth, the director of Unison Technology, and they make a product

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called Predict.

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Camillo, on the last segment we just saw the Mac 2 with all the fancy high resolution color

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graphics and so forth.

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You feel like people are going to move to that high res graphics model or are we going

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to stick with the 1, 2, 3 model everybody knows?

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Well, there's no doubt that some people will want to look into the world of the future.

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People are always doing so.

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But the fact is that 1, 2, 3 right now has an install base of approximately 2 million

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copies and that are compatible programs.

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And the last thing that people want to do is to relearn what they already know.

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Now, Richard, both of you have products that really improve upon the 1, 2, 3 model.

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What sort of things have you done to yours?

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Well, what we've done is to take what everybody already knows in terms of the spreadsheet

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model and add in the capability that a small group of people want to be able to do to express

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uncertainty in their spreadsheets and forecasting and modeling various business situations.

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So this is an extension of the basic model.

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Camillo, can you show us Words and Figures?

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Certainly.

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Words and Figures was predicated on the idea that first of all people wanted a reasonably

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priced Lotus compatible spreadsheet, which is the first thing that Words and Figures

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is.

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And on top of that, we added to Words and Figures a word processor, which is the most

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commonly used function that people do on their personal computers.

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So I will start here with a reconventional spreadsheet.

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Before you get to that, Camillo, I mean, what's the logic?

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I assume there's some premise here in terms of bringing the word processor into the spreadsheet.

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The premise is that if you have a financial story to tell, you may also want to tell people

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a qualitative, a verbal story about it.

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You know, you want to brag about your profits or to, you know, be sorry about your losses.

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So, for example, here we have a regular spreadsheet.

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Unlike any spreadsheet, what if you change one number, the totals change and all the

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percentages change, and we also have the conventional graphing capabilities that 1, 2, 3, Release

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1A has.

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What is new about Words and Figures, besides a very high-performance spreadsheet, is the

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addition of a simple-to-use word processor.

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So you can simply start by saying, the results for the year are...

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So you press one key and boom, you're into a word processor.

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Exactly.

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Rather than have to reload.

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Exactly.

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And the word processor feels like a real word processor.

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It does not feel like a spreadsheet.

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A lot of people use 1, 2, 3 to write, but that is a very unkind way to do it.

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So here we write our report, bragging to the chairman about our results, and now we import

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the spreadsheet itself.

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So we say, bring me the first 10 rows of the spreadsheet, and sure enough, here they are.

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Now not only are they here present in the word processor, but they're also live.

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Notice that my cursor now looks like the conventional spreadsheet cursor.

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And if in fact I change these numbers right here to a large number, all of the numbers

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are recalculated.

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If I take a look at my spreadsheet, sure enough, the spreadsheet was also recalculated.

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So you can operate on the spreadsheet inside the word processor.

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And vice versa.

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I mean, any change made in one is reflected automatically in the other.

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And then to make it even more interesting, for example, you can split the screen into

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two windows.

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Here we have a horizontal window, and let's turn this one into a word processing window.

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So you can be composing the text in here while you're viewing the spreadsheet in the other

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window, and if you change one number here, sure enough, it will change in the other one.

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There it is.

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OK.

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Is the word processor a so-called full-powered word processor?

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No, the word processor will not put a display right out of business.

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It is designed specifically to be a compatible word processor with the spreadsheet.

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For example, some of the things you notice in the word processor is that it uses the

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normal slash and the menu bar.

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So it feels very much like a spreadsheet, but it does all the things you expect a simple

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word processor to do.

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Just a layer on top of the spreadsheet, a simple layer on top of the spreadsheet, then?

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Yes, the word processor.

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Camilo, if you can unload words and figures there so we can get ready to take a look at

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Predictive.

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And Richard, let's follow up on Gary's question before.

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You talked about using uncertainty inside a spreadsheet.

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Explain that a little bit more.

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Well, basically, when people talk about uncertain things, they talk about, they make statements

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like my sales will be between two various numbers, and this one's going to be more possible

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than another one.

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They aren't really dealing with absolute numbers the way they do in a typical spreadsheet.

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It forces you to put a specific number in there.

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Exactly.

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And if you don't have the capability of representing uncertainty, then when you do present the

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results in these forecasts, what you're doing is leaving out the majority of the data that

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you're really talking about.

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And what Predict enables you to do is to encapsulate all of the possibilities for a particular variable

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on your spreadsheet with all the probabilities associated with that and do calculations based

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on those probabilities.

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Could you show us how you do that?

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Sure, absolutely.

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Let me just bring up the Predict here.

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The best way to show it is to sort of give a comparison, if you will, between the way

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people use spreadsheets and the way you would use Predict in a similar situation.

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I can just restore a little sheet here.

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This is the most simple business model you could have, sales, costs, and then profits.

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And what I can do is go down here and show you what a spreadsheet user might do.

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For example, he might say that his sales are, let's say, $1,000 and come down here and say

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that his costs are $500.

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And then doing a calculation to calculate the difference between the two to show what

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the profits are, in this case, something like this.

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OK, your sales minus your costs are going to equal your profits there.

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OK.

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And that gives me a number.

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Now, in a spreadsheet, that works very nicely.

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If I want to do what is, I have to go around and change those numbers and record all the

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different values.

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With Predict, however, I can do something a bit different.

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I can actually represent all the values for a particular variable, in this case, sales,

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in a single cell.

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And I do that by creating what is called a distribution.

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Predict has eight of these that are predefined and one that you can define yourself.

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Now, in the case that I just mentioned, let's say my sales are between 500 and 1,000, most

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likely, let's say, 700.

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That's what we call a triangular distribution.

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I can tell Predict to do or maintain, if you will, a list of 100 what ifs and then put

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in the values for the distribution.

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Let's say 500 as my minimum, 700 is my most likely, and 1,000 as my maximum.

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And I've created a probability distribution.

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I can do the same thing for cost, let's say that I would say my cost would be between

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300 and $700.

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And that's a uniform distribution because it doesn't really have a middle point.

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Again, I'll keep track of 100 what ifs, and I can keep track of up to 8,000 if I want.

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And let's say between 300 and 700.

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Just putting in your min, your max there.

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Exactly.

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Now, the nice feature, actually the major feature of Predict is its ability to do the

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same sort of calculations you would in a spreadsheet, but to maintain all of the results that you

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would do for each one of those what ifs.

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So I can create a list of values, and rather than an initial list, which might be historical

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data, I can create it in an output sense, creating 100 values given my calculation.

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In this case, F7 minus F9.

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Now I can ask Predict to go out and do 100 what ifs automatically just by giving it that.

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And as you can see, the system is picking values from each of those two probability

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distributions and calculating values in the profit cell.

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And at the bottom of the screen, it's telling me how much time I have left until my calculations

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are done.

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The real question is now that all those values have been generated, what can we do with them?

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Predict has a number of features built in as spreadsheet features to handle probability

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distributions in terms of displays, and for example, graphics.

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So it's done its 100 calculations.

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How do you look at this now?

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Right.

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One of the ways most comprehensively to look at a lot of data is to draw a graph.

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I can do that, let's say, by bringing down my profits graph here and looking at the information

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in this cell F11.

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But not just the number that's on the screen.

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I want to look at all the values that have been generated.

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So I put a dollar sign on there.

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And now Predict will take those 100 values and create a probability distribution.

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And that will be shown in a graph here in a second.

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I can see a number of things here.

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We can see that there's some probability of a loss over towards the minus side.

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There's a much greater probability of a profit in this small business plan.

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00:23:15,360 --> 00:23:18,420
And we can also see what the most likely value would be on the graph.

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Can you calculate the odds of a loss?

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Sure.

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There's functionality, for example, with this perform calculate function that allows me

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to see, let's say, the chance of a number being wildly negative in that cell.

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And the answer is 8%.

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That's right.

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What about the new Mac 2 just before and, of course, we know about the new IBM personal

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system 2.

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What are the consequences of that new IBM system in terms of you guys who are developing

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software?

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00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:52,320
Well, from our standpoint, obviously, people are demanding techniques such as these, which

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involve a lot more computations and a lot more data being stored.

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And obviously, the faster the machines and the more data that they can store, you know,

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going beyond, let's say, the 640K limit is a boon to products like ours.

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And what about the graphical interface?

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Are we going to see that as a standard application interface?

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00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:10,040
Well, I don't know.

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00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:14,240
I mean, the fact is that people are very much used to seeing things in this format.

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There are, you know, two, three, four million spreadsheet users in the world that use it

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exactly as you see there.

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Whether they want to learn something else to get the job done, only time will tell.

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Gentlemen, we're out of time.

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Thank you very much.

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That completes our look at spreadsheets.

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00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:29,280
We'll be back next week with part four of this business application series looking at

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00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:30,280
database managers.

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00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:31,720
So be sure to join us then.

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00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:45,040
Right now, stay tuned for this week's computer news.

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00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:49,440
I'm Susan Chase sitting in for Stuart Shafaei in the Random Access File this week.

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Lotus Development Corporation has signed a 10-year agreement with IBM to design software

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for its largest computers, starting with a version of 1, 2, 3 for the System 370 mainframes.

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00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:04,640
The deal puts Lotus on a more even footing with Microsoft, which recently overtook Lotus

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00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:09,680
as the world's largest manufacturer of PC software and has long had a working relationship

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with IBM.

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00:25:11,180 --> 00:25:15,760
Its most devastating effect will be on Ashton Tate, the only one of the Big Three software

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00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,200
makers without such a relationship.

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00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:22,240
The new version of 1, 2, 3 will not be available until next year.

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00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:27,600
Lotus also announced two other versions of 1, 2, 3 with multidimensional support capability,

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a line of multi-user database programs and an enhanced programming capability for 1,

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2, 3.

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And the race for the fastest computers continues.

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ETA Systems recently unveiled the ETA 10, a supercomputer capable of processing 10 billion

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calculations per second.

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00:25:45,360 --> 00:25:50,240
ETA, a controlled data subsidiary, claims the new machine has twice the performance

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of supercomputers made by industry leader Cray Research.

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00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:59,320
Cray, on the other hand, believes their Cray 2 is three times faster than the ETA 10.

451
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:03,760
And further competition comes from thinking machines, with their announcement of a machine

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00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:09,800
that reportedly outperforms both ETA 10 and Cray 2 on some tasks.

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00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:14,100
Apple Computer plans to create an independent software company to promote the creation of

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programs for its computers by small developers.

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00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:21,440
The new Apple Company will sell programs written by other companies who would not otherwise

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have the resources to market and distribute their products.

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In addition, it will sell programs currently published by Apple, but under its own label.

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Apple sees these new products as a way of stimulating sales of its computers by making

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them capable of doing more things.

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00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:41,320
Now it's time for this week's software review, and here's Paul Schindler.

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Outlines obscure details.

462
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,320
The same is true of many outliners now on the market.

463
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:48,680
They tend to obscure rather than illuminate.

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00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:52,800
Now that was before More, a most graphical outliner and database.

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First of all, as a simple outliner, it offers you the option of looking at any outline in

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three different graphic formats, tree, bullet, or outline.

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You can hop back and forth between various levels of detail.

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In addition, you can change fonts, add lines, eliminate the menu at the bottom, change numbers

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to bullets, and use More to create overhead slides.

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Now if that were all it could do, More would be cute.

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But you can also have six different files open at once on the screen.

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And More can total figures within the outline.

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Actually, More does many things.

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It can do memos and letters.

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It can keep an online calendar.

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Now suppose you want to keep your calendar in More.

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You bring up a calendar, drag the mouse across it, and More will create a calendar outline.

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Other templates can be used for expenses, order entry, or an address book.

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More is an outliner for use on the Apple Macintosh, $295 from Living Video Text of Mountain View,

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California.

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For Computer Chronicles, I'm Paul Schindler.

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And that's it for this week's Computer Chronicles.

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The Computer Chronicles is made possible by Leading Edge, makers of IBM-compatible computer

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systems including word processing with spelling correction, communication software, and Hays-compatible

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1200 and 2400 baud modems.

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Leading Edge, with over 1,000 service centers nationwide.

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Leading Edge, leading the way to the information age.

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Additional funding is provided by McGraw-Hill, publishers of Byte.

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Byte's detailed technical articles on new hardware, software, and languages cover developments

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in computer technology worldwide.